My Only Friend
by The Dragon You Must Not Tickle
Summary: I only need the pain. It's the only friend that I have left. One-Shot. Self-Harm.


**Disclaimer: Harry Potter and anything associated with it belongs to JK Rowling and Warner Bros. I'm just borrowing them and making them do my evil bidding.**

**Warnings: Self-Harm.**

**Authors Note: Decided I needed a change from angsty Hermione stories. So here's a Neville one for you instead! Hope you enjoy!**

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Are you alright Neville? They ask.

I'm fine. I answer.

Are you sure? You don't look alright. Should I get Madam Pomfrey? Are you sure you're not ill? You look extremely pale to me.

I'm fine. I repeat. Why don't they get it?

I'm fine.

Well, technically, I'm lying. If they're asking if I was THEIR definition of fine, then no, I'm the worst I've ever been in my whole life. Then again, if they're asking if I was MY definition of fine, then yes, I'm the best I've ever been in my whole life.

I guess I always lie when they ask me that question. No one would care if I told them the truth though. If I told them, they'd probably forget about it by tomorrow. Like they always do when it's something to do with me.

Who cares if I keep getting looked down on by most of my family, especially my grandmother, because I'm not enough like my father. I just have to try harder, don't I?

Who cares if my parents are stuck permanently in St. Mungos because all their sanity has been tortured out of them. I mean Harry Potter's off worse isn't he? His parents are dead. Everyone forgets that he has friends, though. He also has adults who can tell him stories about how they were in school. My parents don't even remember their own son's name.

Who cares if I get picked on by everyone, even the teachers, because I'm just stupid, worthless, useless, a waste-of-space and a squib. I guess I just have to suck it up don't I? Not everyone's going to like everybody. Right?

Who cares about pathetic, friendless, little Neville Longbottom.

Who cares if I make myself bleed every day, without fail.

Nobody. That's who.

I remember when I first did it.

For a second nothing happened, and I wondered if I had a dull blade. Then a drop of blood drew a line down the pink flesh of my inner arm, dripping off my bent elbow into the clear water.

It was interesting to watch how the red dissipated when it hit the water, how quickly my blood was lost. Maybe when I was through bleeding, my body would dissolve, too; it would be as if I had never been.

I made another one.

The cut was shallow but it worked with the perfect predictability of a valve on a steam engine. The release was exquisite. As the blood flowed out so too did the terrible blackness. The rush of the blood soothed me, purged me. I felt elated but at the same time quite calm.

I wasn't trying to die. I just wanted to prove that I was really alive. Not just a shadow in the background of everybody's mind. I just wanted to cut through the fog. The fog that everyone had made to make me feel like a stupid memory that wasn't even worth remembering. I just wanted to be alive again. I can't even remember the last time I felt fully alive.

Too bad you can't come back to life if you're already dead inside. Or, to the probable disappointment of most of my "friends", too bad you can't die if there's nothing left in you alive.

I'm looking down at those same wrists and everything seems so bad, just so bad, even though nothing has happened to me in this hour to make me feel that way, that I just want to...I mean I see my wrists, they look so white, I can see the blue veins, it would be so easy, so easy to cut them open.

The old cuts look and feel like barbed wire. Blood-red barbed wire. Some of them still look fresh. Those are from the times that I had cut too deep. It took me ages to bandage all of them up.

I only have cuts. I've never burnt or bruised myself. You don't bleed from those. That's mostly the reason why I hurt myself to begin with, to see myself bleed. I like to see all the hate and loathing wash away down the sink in drops of red liquid.

I always do it the muggle way. Never the magic way. I'd probably mess it all up anyway. Everyone said I'd be more useful as a muggle than a wizard, I guess they were right.

I'm sure it's connected with self-loathing. You mark yourself because you feel you can't make a mark anywhere else. But, this isn't only connected to "self"-loathing, loads of other people hate me as well.

When I cut myself I feel so much better. It's kind of like letting out a sigh. I get a peaceful feeling and a kind of self-satisfaction at having hurt myself. All the little things that might have been annoying me suddenly seem so trivial, because I'm concentrating on the pain.

There's no need for worry, stress or feelings when I do it.

No need to think about how one slip of the razor or knife or what other sharp object I can find, one tiny little mis-placing, and I'd be gone.

No need to think about anything else but the pain.

I only need the pain. It's the only friend that I have left.

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**Authors Note 2: Review? Please? I'll give you cheese?**


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